Bell was the wildest and strangest of the two. She was one of those ærial little creatures who, somehow or other, get into this world sometimes--it must be by slipping through the fingers of the angels, for they seem strangely out of place, and I am sure that they are missed somewhere! They never stay long! They come to earth and sometimes ripen for heaven in a twelve month! The sweetest flowers are those that die in the spring-time: they touch the world with beauty, and are gone, before a ruder breath than that of God scatters their perfume. Bell was a _Gipsy angel_--one of those who wander, for awhile, outside the walls of heaven, in the shady pastures and by-ways of the world. "Mortimer," said Bell, after a long silence, "how nice it is to sit here and watch the bits of sails coming and going--coming and going, never weary! I wonder how long we have sat at this window and watched the white specks? I wonder if it will always be so; if you and I will still be here, loving the sea and stars, when our heads are as white as Nanny's?" "No!" cried the boy, impetuously. "I am going out into the broad, deep world, and write books full of wonderful thought, like the Arabian Nights!" And he repeated it, the broad, deep world! Ah, child! what have such dreamers as you to do in the broad, deep world--the wonderful, restless sea, where men cast the net of thought and bring up pebbles? "I would like that, Mort!" cried Bell, clapping her hands. "But then, what a grand place this would be to write them in! You can have your desk by the open window here; and when your eyes are tired, you can rest them on the sea. And I will be _so_ quiet--as gentle as pussy, even, and do nothing but make pens for you all the time. Wouldn't that be fine?" "Yes! and father should go no more away in ships. He might have a yacht to leap over the surge in, to sail around all those little islands and in the green bays; but never go off to sea. The books I am going to write will bring us money enough." So the little castle-builders talked until the sun had melted into the waves, and twilight, like a pilgrim that had been resting by the roadside, rose up from the beach, and came slowly toward the old house. Mortimer, who had been gazing dreamily at the beach--which grew fainter and fainter, till it seemed like a white thread running through the selvage of blue drapery--turned his eyes on Bell. "Bell," said he, quietly, "as you sit there in the shadows, with your beautiful hair folded over your forehead, you look like an angel!" "Do I?" "I can put my hand on your neck, yet you seem far away from me." "Come, rest your head in my lap, Mort," said the girl, tenderly, "and I will tell you of a real true angel who once came into this world."